Algorithms in the Attic

This article was posted on HBR this month.

One reason why math is important at this timing.

"For a powerful perspective on future business, take a hard look at mathematics past. As computing gets ever faster and cheaper, yesterday’s abstruse equations are becoming platforms for tomorrow’s breakthroughs. Companies in several industries are now dusting off these formulas and putting them in the service of new products and processes."

"Why should past work, often quite theoretical, be so useful now? Done in the absence of high-speed, low-cost computational capacity, that work put a premium on imaginative quantitative thinking. With today’s high-powered processors and broadband networks, those abstractions can point the way to practical software that leaps over current operational constraints.Disruptive opportunities abound."